


Thief in the Night

by orphan_account



Category: Marvel (Movies), The Avengers (2012)
Genre: 5+1?, AU, Crack, Fluff, I have no idea, M/M, Slow Build, clint is bit of a creeper, fbi!Phil, phil needs a nap, thief!Clint
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-14
Updated: 2012-08-14
Packaged: 2017-11-12 03:02:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,730
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/485941
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The thief known as Hawkeye has the white collar crimes division of the FBI scrambling for leads and turning up nothing. Senior Agent Phil Coulson, the lead investigator on the case, is Not Amused. </p>
<p>Or,<br/>that cracky fic in which Clint is a cat burglar/gentleman thief and Phil is the badass FBI agent trying to catch him.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have no idea where this came from or why, but I got bit by a plot bunny at 1 in the morning and ran with it. I'm thinking this will probably be 5 little scenes, or maybe a 5+1 thing, but I'm not sure. I have the next chapter written and a third in progress, so we'll see what happens. Mostly I just wanted Phil to be a BAMF FBI agent and Clint to be a BAMF cat burglar who likes to mess with him. Kind of like Lupin the 3rd and Zenigata, you know, if Lupin was gay and Zenigata was competent. *handwaves* just go with it, because I don't even know. Enjoy!

FBI Agent Phil Coulson stumbles home at an ungodly hour of the morning and wants nothing more than to fall into bed and sleep for an entire week. He knows that’s not going to happen anytime soon. He hasn’t had a full eight hours of uninterrupted sleep in over a month, and it’ll be another two weeks at least before it’ll even be a possibility. The Hawkeye Burglar has the white collar crimes division scrambling for a lead and after three high profile robberies in the last two weeks, they have absolutely nothing to show for it.  
  
In all honesty Phil has never been more enthralled with a case before. Or more frustrated. To be fair most of the frustration is coming from the big wigs in charge, not the case itself. Hawkeye’s marks are all very rich people who know very powerful people who put unnecessary pressure on Phil and his team, thus making their jobs ten times harder. It’s difficult enough working a case where there’s no physical evidence at the scene without his bosses breathing down his neck and pushing for results. There are no fingerprints, no obvious evidence of tampering with the security systems, no suspicious persons casing the area before the theft, sometimes they'll catch a flicker of motion on a security camera, but never enough to make out anything beyond the fact that the thief is a man. The only concrete evidence they have to work with is Hawkeye's calling card: an arrow drawn in black chalk in place of whatever it was he stole. There's no connection between his marks either, except for the fact that they're all filthy rich. A diamond necklace from a banker's wife first, a Van Gogh painting from an art connoisseur's private gallery, and an antique ballerina figurine from a stock broker. Hawkeye was either hoarding the loot for himself, sending them away to be fenced, or he had private buyers lined up waiting for the items, because there was no sign of them in any of the usual places for high end stolen goods.  
  
Phil flicks the kitchen light on and is greeted by the slim black specter of his cat perched on the edge of the counter, scowling at him with the full force of her feline disdain.  
  
“Hey, sweetie,” he greets with a tired smile. The cat is unimpressed and ducks her head away when he reaches out to pet her. She lets out a plaintive meow and hops down to the floor with a soft thump and stalks over to her empty food dish. She sits down and glares at him, lets out a sharp yowl. He flinches as the sound hits his ears, sending a stab of pain through his aching skull. He fills the dish and retreats to the living room on his way to his bedroom.  
  
The window is open, just like he left it earlier the morning before, and he moves to close it. He has only a faint impression of something zipping through the air before he drops and lunges for cover behind his couch, adrenaline rushing through his veins and gun in hand before he’s even aware of what’s happened. Heart hammering in his chest, he peers around the end of the couch and sees a small tear in the wire screen. Frowning, he shifts to see the other side of the room.  
  
He blinks, surprised. There is an arrow embedded in the opposite wall, still shaking with the force of impact, with purple fletching and a black shaft except for a thick band of white around the middle.  
  
Phil turns back to the window, eyes straining to make out any sort of movement, waiting for any more projectiles. A minute passes, then two, when he finally stands, gun at the ready and sidles over to check the window. He’ll have to replace the screen now, the tear is big enough to be an issue once the insects come out in full force.  
  
He looks between the hole in the screen to the arrow and frowns, mentally mapping the trajectory it would have taken to land where it did. Whoever had fired the arrow was either a poor shot, or else had not been aiming for Phil at all. He’d been standing directly in front of the window when the shot was fired, and if he hadn’t moved the arrow would have passed harmlessly over his right shoulder with six inches to spare before hitting the far wall.  
  
He moves across the room to inspect the arrow. What he’d originally thought of as a white band was actually a piece of paper wrapped tight around the shaft of the arrow and held in place with masking tape at either end of the sheet, presumably to minimize any changes in the arrow’s flight. Phil finds a pair of latex gloves in his desk and carefully removes the sheet of paper, minimizing the contamination of evidence as much as he can.  
  
The paper is half of a sheet of plain printer paper with writing on it, The penmanship is rough and spiky, hurried, but easily legible:  
  
 _Agent Coulson,  
You look like you need a nap. Maybe you oughta lay off the caffeine?  
Hawkeye_ **> >\--->**  
  
Phil gives the message a bemused frown as he reaches for his cell phone to call a CSI team to collect the evidence. Why in the world was Hawkeye sending him messages? How the hell did he even find out his address? Or his name, for that matter. And what the hell was up with the arrow?  
  
As the phone rings, Phil resigns himself to a long day with no sleep. He heads to the kitchen to put on a fresh pot of coffee when Sitwell picks up, sounding groggy and Phil allows himself a moment to be petty and glad that he’s not the only one who won’t be getting any rest for the next few hours.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Hawkeye may or may not be flirting/messing with Agent Coulson.

One week later Phil arrives home late, but it’s still p.m., so he counts it as a win. It’s been nine days since the last time he made it home before midnight, so 10 p.m. feels absolutely early. Peggy, the cat, is feeling forgiving today and allows him to pet her for a moment before hopping down from the counter and heading for her dish. He goes to fetch the bag of cat food and is surprised to see that there is still food in the dish. He glances down at the cat, happily crunching away, and wonders if something’s wrong with her that she didn’t finish her breakfast. He studies her a moment, but nothing else about her behavior is off, so he pushes the worry aside. She’s due for her vaccinations in a few weeks, he’ll ask then if anything else happens.  
  
He loosens his tie and sets the kettle to boil for tea before heading to the living room. There is still a chunk of drywall missing from where the CSI team had removed the barbed arrow. He makes a mental note to let his landlord know about the damage, but will probably forget by morning. He turns towards the couch and freezes.  
  
In the middle of low coffee table is another arrow, identical to the first, minus the white band of paper taped to the shaft, set deliberately on top of a too familiar black binder.  
  
Oh god, no. Oh fuck, if that bastard did anything to damage them--!  
  
Phil lunges forward, heart beating wildly in his chest as he knocks the arrow aside and snaps the binder open. Relief hits him hard enough that he sags to his knees on the carpet and tries to catch his breath. His vintage Captain America trading cards are exactly as he left them. He flips through the plastic pages, examining each card and determining that yes, all of them are present and undamaged before he notices the white sheet of paper that had fluttered free of the binder in his rush to check his precious cards.  
  
The handwriting is the same as the first:  
 _  
Nice collection, Phil! Should’ve known you’d be a geek. You really should get some rest, you know. Too much caffeine’s bad for your blood pressure.  
Hawkeye  >>\--->_  
  
Phil sighs and reaches for his cell phone before he changes his mind. They hadn’t been able to find any trace evidence on the last note Hawkeye had sent, and Phil really, _really_ doesn’t want the CSIs anywhere near his cards. Hawkeye had broken into some of the most secure buildings in the city without a trace, Phil’s sixth story apartment would’ve been a cakewalk in comparison. He would bring the note and the arrow to the crime lab tomorrow. In the mean time he wanted to drink his tea, watch Supernanny, and sleep. The rest could wait.  
  
As he settles on the sofa with his tea he contemplates the note on the table with a bemused frown. That Hawkeye knows his name and where he lives is the most troubling part of this whole mess. The media has been kept in the dark about everything but the bare bones of the case, so that’s out. The only thing Phil can think of is that he must have a source within the FBI. Which doesn’t really narrow things down all that much. Maintenance workers, secretaries, mail room employees, interns, security personnel, other agents, all of them know that Phil is the lead agent on the Hawkeye case. For a man who can bypass StarkTech security systems, finding a federal agent's home address wouldn't even be a challenge.  
  
But the thing that’s really driving Phil crazy is why. Neither of the notes have been even remotely threatening, could actually be called rather genial. That the thief has been in his apartment is worrying, but other than moving his card collection from the bookshelf to the table, and possibly feeding his cat, nothing else has been touched. He groans and rubs a hand over his face in frustration.  
  
Maddening and intriguing. Phil can’t wait to finally meet him. Lack of evidence aside, Phil has never failed to close a case in his fifteen years with the Bureau and he isn’t about to start now. He doesn’t care if it takes months or years for Hawkeye to slip up, when he does Phil will be ready for him.


End file.
